ExxonMobil lawsuit; Israel strikes Lebanon : NPR

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Today’s top stories

Israeli strikes killed nearly 500 people, including 35 children, in Lebanon yesterday, according to Lebanese authorities. At least 1,645 people were injured in the attacks. Analysts say it’s the largest campaign of Israeli aerial strikes against Hezbollah since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. Tens of thousands of people fled their homes.

• 🎧 NPR’s Jane Arraf tells Up First she was just south of Beirut, in Sidoni traveling the escape route in bumper-to-bumper traffic, where she saw eight or nine people crammed into some cars. Hezbollah appears to be scrambling to respond after they have taken multiple hits from the massive security breach of the exploding communication devices and an attack days later that resulted in the death of a top commander. The Iran-backed group has launched retaliatory attacks but has indicated it hasn’t avenged last week’s attacks.

Vice President Harris has made four campaign stops in Wisconsin since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee. Democratic votes in the state are concentrated in a few areas, including the blue counties around the college town of Madison, which she visited on Friday. To secure the votes she needs in this crucial swing state, she needs to gather as many votes as possible in Democratic-leaning areas and minimize losses in rural counties that tend to vote Republican.

• 🎧 Harris highlights her message for the area and the country in an interview with Kate Archer Kent of NPR network station Wisconsin Public Radio. Her campaign has been very focused on abortion rights, and she says that she believes it is well within Democrats’ reach to retain the majority in the Senate and take back the House. She says she supports changing the Senate filibuster rules in order to pass a bill to codify abortion rights. She also addressed the concern about the lack of affordable housing, saying she wants to have 3 million homes built in her first term and provide first-time home buyers with $250,000 in assistance.

California filed a groundbreaking lawsuit against ExxonMobil yesterday, alleging the company spent decades deceiving the public about whether plastic could be recycled. Despite knowing that recycling plastics was technically and economically challenging, the company still promoted recycling as a viable option. The lawsuit calls out ExxonMobil’s attempt to blame the public for a plastic crisis the state’s top prosecutor says the company created. California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the state has spent over $1 billion each year to manage its plastic waste problems.

• 🎧 The attorney general’s staff have uncovered numerous internal documents between the oil company and industry executives, in which they seem to admit that plastic recycling is not effective, yet publicly claim the opposite, NPR’s Laura Sullivan says. In response, the company released a statement asserting that recycling does work and that California is trying to shift the blame onto them due to its own recycling challenges. The state wants Exxon to pay billions of dollars and to reeducate the public that the vast majority of plastic isn’t recyclable and is just trash.

We, the voters

NPR is visiting six key swing states that will likely decide this year’s historic election. This week, Morning Edition is in Nevada to listen to voters about what matters to them and how that will affect their vote.

A fall festival and rodeo took place in Pahrump, Nevada, located miles west of Las Vegas, recently. The event featured carnival games, fried foods and rodeo activities, but that’s not all. Notably, the crowd was filled with Make America Great Again hats. Only one person was spotted wearing a Harris-Walz camo hat in the politically red area. Morning Edition journalists attended the festival to speak with voters and gather their thoughts leading up to the election.

Deep dive

Electric vehicles are considered cleaner than its alternatives, but fewer Americans are convinced. According to the market research firm Ipsos, the percentage of Americans who believe EVs are better for the environment than gas cars has decreased by five percentage points since 2022. People interested in purchasing an EV remain steadfast in believing these vehicles offer an environmental benefit. It’s the individuals who are not open to adopting the electric alternative who are increasingly skeptical. Here’s where that is coming from:

• 🚗 EVs are often called zero-emission vehicles because they produce no tailpipe emissions. However, there are pollution and environmental costs associated with building them and charging their batteries.
• 🚗 Brake emissions are a concern for EVs due to their weight. Nick Molden, the researcher behind the original Emission Analytics study, suggests that regenerative braking, which captures a car’s energy when it’s slowing down and stores it for later use, could offset this effect.
• 🚗 EV sales in the U.S. have slowed down. In fact, automotive data giant J.D. Power predicts the share of new-car sales for EVs has just peaked for the year at 9.2%.
• 🚗 Charging accessibility is one of the main reasons people interested in EVs are hesitant to buy one, according to J.D. Power’s tracking.

3 things to know before you go

1. Kim Yeji, the South Korean pistol shooter who won a silver medal and the internet’s adoration at the Paris Olympics, has landed her first acting role. She’ll play an assassin.
2. A student at Pennsylvania’s Gettysburg College has left the school after an investigation found them responsible for etching a racial slur across another student’s chest during a social gathering earlier this month.
3. In 2023, crime rates in the U.S. decreased compared to the previous year, with notable drops in murder and rape, according to new FBI data.

This newsletter was edited by Suzanne Nuyen.